With a scoffing laugh, I grabbed Jax’s hand and took off, popping into the faux tower … and finding that Owen and Faith were already gone. My heart stuttered a little, but I could still smell them in the room, so I forced my rapidly beating heart to calm.
‘Let me know if any of you see Faith,’ I said as I took Jax into enemy territory and helped make up the point difference. It might’ve been just a game … but the Silver Wolf, she didn’t like to lose.
After the round was over—we ended up winning by over a hundred points, werewolves versus humans just isn’t all that fair—we gathered in the lobby and took off our vests and guns, returning them for the next group.
Smiling and sweating, I pushed some red hair back from my face and looked around for Faith and Owen. As the rest of the people filtered out and back into the restaurant/arcade area, I realized that they weren’t there. I could smell them, but only faintly, like they’d passed through here several minutes earlier.
“Do you think they snuck off to make out or something?” Nic asked, standing on my left side. I was impressed with him, leaving his usual position to have fun for a few minutes. If I had little fun in my life, poor Nic had even less. He’d been trained from birth to be a guard, to give his life for an alpha, not to seek out pleasures in life on his own. I was starting to think that this new miniature pack of ours was good for him. Even though he fought with Che and Silas, they had more in common than he realized.
I yanked my cell from my pocked, the moon and wolf charms falling against my knuckles as I dialed Faith’s number and waited for her to answer. Nothing. I didn’t hear her ringtone either. Sure, the place was packed, but I had selective hearing; I was a fucking werewolf. Shooting off a quick text, I took off toward the parking lot, following Faith’s scent.
‘Split up into three groups; find her,’ I snapped, praying I hadn’t made yet another ridiculous mistake with my friend. Had I gotten her killed by coming out with her? Had I led my enemies directly to her?
Nic, Tidus, and I burst into the parking lot just as I heard Faith scream.
Tidus shifted into wolf form, shedding his clothes in the dark parking lot as we charged toward the sound, heading around the back of the SUV … and finding Faith and Owen in the middle of a fight.
“You fucking cheated on me!” he was screaming as Faith cried black mascara tears and sniffled, shrugging her shoulders like she just didn’t know what to say to him anymore. “You make me come out with your weird ass friend and her like, one hundred goddamn boyfriends. What, you into that polygamist shit, too?”
“It’s not polygamy,” Anubis said, appearing behind Owen while Tidus snuck back off to shift and retrieve his clothes. “What we have would most likely be called polyandry. Or perhaps, in some circles, maybe even polyamory.”
“You shut your fucking mouth, you psycho freak. Unlike some people,” Owen sneered, looking Faith up and down with a crazed look in his eyes. I’d never seen him like this before. Frankly, I’d thought he was just a loser pothead, totally pathetic but also completely harmless. “I’m not into dudes butt fucking each other. It’s disgusting.” Faith reached out for him, but Owen jerked back and held up his palms in mock surrender. “Enjoy your new boyfriend, babe, because this”—Owen clutched his junk—”is now off-limits. Screw you, Faith.” He turned and stormed off, yanking his phone from his pocket as he went.
I was so mad I was shaking, and the magic leaked out of me before I even realized what was happening. Wind swirled through the parking lot, bringing with it the scent of power, acrid and metallic. It knocked Owen’s phone from his hand and cracked the screen on the pavement.
Small victories, but … at least it made me feel better when I turned back to my crying friend.
There was a man standing across the parking lot, in the shadows of a tree, its thick branches blocking both the moonlight and the street lamps from above. I’d noticed him right away, but didn’t know what to make of him.
When he stood up and moved out into the silver starlight, an eerie chill chased down my spine.
There was something about those dark, slanted eyes that was familiar.
Faerie.
He might’ve been wearing a glamour, but it wasn’t a very good one. His skin was dark, ebon black, the color of night shadows without moonlight, and it sparkled like the quartz countertops in Lana’s kitchen. The only Numinous I was aware of who almost literally glittered were faeries. Gentry. Sidhe.
“Homophobic piece of shit,” Faith muttered, wiping her face off on her arm and glancing over at me. “Sorry you had to witness that.”
“It’s okay,” I said, folding her into a hug as Tidus came around the opposite side of the SUV, his shirt on inside out. He gave me a thumbs-up, but at least he was dressed, right? My eyes, though, they never left the faerie boy.
‘We’ve got trouble, guys,’ I said as the man moved closer to us, stopping only when Jax and Silas stepped in front of him and cut him off.
“Oh,” Faith said, sniffling again and holding out an arm to gesture at the man. “This is Malak.”
“You know this guy?” I asked and Faith nodded slightly, her cheeks flushing red. My ebon glare was focused fully on the man; he hadn’t said a damn word, but I didn’t trust him for shit. That, and I wanted to know why Faith wasn’t weirded out by the way his skin sparkled.
“We met in class a few days ago,” she said, and when she turned to look at him … something happened in her face, this glazed look that wiped her personality away and left nothing but a shell. “We have a connection though; we’re in love, Zara.”
“In love?!” Nic barked, stepping closer to the man and giving him a once-over that clearly said he wasn’t impressed. “What the hell is going on here?”
“Hello, Zara Wolf,” the faerie man said, his voice like waterfalls over rocks, soothing but dangerous at the same time. “It’s lovely to finally meet you.”
“What do you want?” I asked, putting my hands on Faith’s shoulders when she started to move over to him, drawn like a moth to flame, one who didn’t care if its wings burned and withered away to ash.
“Oh, nothing,” he said, dressed in all white—white t-shirt, jeans, leather boots with white laces. Even his hair was white. His gaze though, it was a bright blue, like the sky on a summer day. As I watched, what little glamour he’d bothered to cloak himself with fell away and two large gauzy white wings stretched out on either side of him. They were fake—sidhe don’t have wings—but it was a part of his outfit he’d thought to keep hidden until now. That, and his scent were really all that the glamour had cloaked. Now that it was gone, I could smell him—that distinct charred bone and sugar scent. “I’m actually here to see Faith.”
“Are you now?” I growled out, hating the dead look in my friend’s eyes.
“You heard her: we have a special connection, and we’re in love.” The way he smiled at me, it reminded me of that kelpie on the shore of a faerie river, predatory and wild. The man lifted one, glittering dark hand out to my friend and she made a low, keening sound in her throat, lunging toward him.
I had to hold her back. Not once in our lives together had I ever had to physically control Faith like that; I’ve never wanted to. But the strength in her fight was beyond normal. She was almost difficult for me to keep still.
“If you don’t let her have me, she’ll die,” the man said, pulling his hand back and tapping a single finger against his lips. “We just kissed, so she’ll be good for a few days … maybe. But if we don’t have sex again, she’ll die.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Nic snarled, careful not to get too close to the sidhe. Fae were unpredictable, always dangerous, famous for the way they killed. Kelpie … drowned their victims. Sidhe from the Seelie Court … they killed with sex. Although both Unseelie and Seelie sidhe were essentially the same species and could create viable offspring together, they’d evolved separately, on opposite halves of the same continent.
The Unseelie had special talents that the Seelie did not possess and vice versa.
Toxic, sexual magic … that was a mark of the Seelie. Everything about their court was light and fluffy on the outside, but beneath the pomp and circumstance, the good manners, and the glittering courtiers, there was nothing but death and violence and addiction.
“You slept with her?” I asked, wondering why Faith hadn’t told me. Normally, I was the first person to know if she found a new guy. Fuck, sometimes she called me while she was still in bed with the mystery man.
But this?
This was my worst nightmare come true.
“Malak,” Anubis said, testing the name out on his tongue. “The Seelie Prince?”
The fae man grinned, winked, tossed a mushroom at his feet … and disappeared.
Faith was slightly more coherent when we arrived back at the Pairing House than she’d been the entire drive home. I’d used her phone to text her dad, Craig, and let him know that she’d be staying the weekend with me.
Gods, I hope this is only for the weekend! Not that I didn’t want Faith at the house with us … I just didn’t want her in a catatonic state and dying from faerie toxins.
“Is there a cure for this?” I asked Aeron, after sending one of the boys to fetch her from Nic’s parents’ house. The faerie princess stood there with no glamour, long dark hair hanging over her shoulders as she examined my friend with narrowed sloe-eyes. Faith was talking, but she was so out of it that she wasn’t registering Aeron’s strange appearance.
“Zara, can I have some of that leftover pizza?” she asked, cuddling into the pillows in the pull-out bed in the den. It was where Harlem had been sleeping, but since it looked like all three girls—the Blood, the faerie, and the witch—were going to be our guests for some time, I was going to have the Beta House cleaned up for them. “Oh, and my phone? I want to call Malak.”
“How could you not tell me about him?” I asked, slumping down on the side of the bed while I waited for Aeron to answer.
“The addiction between humans and the Seelie, it’s a documented fact,” Aeron said, and I really didn’t like the way she refused to answer my previous question. That did not bode well. “How many times has she slept with him?”
“I have no idea,” I said as Faith took a piece of buttered toast from Monty’s hand and frowned at it. She wanted leftover pizza, but we most certainly hadn’t had time to pick up our leftovers on the way out of there. Sorry, Faith. “I didn’t even know she’d met a new guy.” Guilt ate at my insides, left pieces of me raw and rotting and gaping. Not only had I failed to protect Faith’s mother, but now my best friend was suffering, too.
Aeron sighed while Whitney stood in the doorway, her arms crossed over a loose white tank and jeans she’d borrowed from me. Just like we’d abandoned our pizza at True Fantasies, she hadn’t had time to bring any of her clothes. She struck me as a person with a very distinct style, and I imagined it might really get to her after a while.
“The only cure is the blood of the faerie she’s slept with … or else more sex. But the more she sleeps with a Seelie fae, the more she’ll want them and the less time she’ll have between relapses. Like this.” Aeron gestured randomly at my friend, munching on the toast and grabbing the remote control off the nightstand. She looked normal, but here was a genuine faerie girl sitting right in front of her and she acted like she didn’t even notice.
“More blood,” I said, running both hands down my face.
Blood, blood, blood.
So much revolved around that crimson liquid.
It was considered the highway for magic to travel through the body, after all. And it held so much power. So, so, so, so much.
“So what does Malak want with us?” I asked, grinding my teeth and feeling precariously close to losing my usual ironclad self-control. The boys stood around the room, waiting quietly while I worked this out with the Unseelie Princess.
“I have no idea,” Aeron whispered, her eyes drifting over Faith and then flicking back to Whitney. “But I can only guess it has something to do with the rune in that spell, or the glamour on that warehouse. Obviously, the Seelie are involved. At this point, it’s something I feel like my mother needs to know.”
“You were banished,” Whitney said, stepping into the room, her blonde-brown curls swaying with bits of ribbon, beads, and bone. Her black pointed witch hat sat atop her head, lilting gently to one side. “If you go back there, they’ll kill you. Sorry, Aeron, but I won’t allow it.”
“You don’t have any control or dominion over me,” Aeron said, rising to her feet in a swish of gauzy fabric, still wearing the silver robes she’d given me when the boys and I had visited Faerie. “I’m still the heir to the throne and you are no longer the Maiden. We both might be banished, but you don’t know my mother. Eventually, I’ll get an invitation back.”
Whitney scoffed and rolled her dark brown eyes. They looked smaller somehow, now that she was without those feather eyelashes she liked to wear.
“Say whatever you want; think whatever you want. But if you try to cross that Veil, I’ll be on your ass and we’ll have to spar until one of us passes out. I’ll give ya a hint real quick: it ain’t gonna be me.” Whitney purred this last part out—like a cat—and went for the screen door, shoving herself out of it and picking up the furred form of her black and white familiar. She disappeared from sight, but I heard the creaking of rocking chairs as she took a seat on the porch.
Everything was falling apart around us.
Aeron was banished; Whitney’s maidenhood was broken; Silas’ mom was dead; twelve members of Tidus’ pack had just been kidnapped; Montgomery’s parents were nowhere to be found. And now … Faith. Faith. Fucking Faith. She was my anchor to the human world, the realization of the humanity that sometimes seemed to escape me, slipping between my fingers like sand. Whenever I felt like I was about to break, like I was more beast than human, all I had to do was make an appointment to hang out with my best friend and everything changed. She made it easy for me to breathe again.
“Zara, sit down and watch this with me,” Faith said as Aeron left to talk to Whitney, putting on an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race on the small flat-screen TV mounted to the wall in the den. “And get that pizza. Why does this guy keep bringing me toast?”
I glanced back in time to see her sprawl into the pillows, closing her eyes and wiggling in a way that made me think she was dreaming of Malak.
“What do you want us to do?” Nic asked, standing stiff on the opposite side of the bed, looking down at our friend with a quiet fury that was further confirmation of how much he really cared. Of course, I knew at least part of his love for Faith was because I loved her so much, because she made me happy. But he was her friend, too. And if he wasn’t throwing a party to rejoice the loss of Owen Tiaffay, then it was painfully obvious that something else was wrong.
“I need to go for a run,” I said, feeling my pulse skyrocket as I stood up and kicked off my shoes, dropped my jacket to the floor, and ripped my tank over my head. I could feel the tension in the room; they wanted to run with me, follow along, protect me.
They also knew what it was like when a person needed a minute to themselves.
I finished stripping and headed for the screen door, shoving my way out into a dark, dark night. Clouds covered the stars and what was left of the moon. We were on our way toward a new moon, the one night a month when a werewolf’s powers were at their weakest. If something was going to happen, some retaliation for freeing the stolen werewolves, thwarting the witches’ spell, or stealing the cauldron … that would be a good day to do it.
As I ran, I let my wolf take over, the beast inside of me howling its way to the forefront of my mind and senses, turning my body to liquid as I melted and reformed into a massive white wolf with black and red designs on my back, muscles tensed and ready to carry me as far as I needed to go. Behind me, I heard howls as several of my mates w
ere drawn outside, almost against their will. I wondered how many would resist the change, and how many of them would find it impossible to ignore.
I took off into the trees, sprinting past tall pines and shrubby overgrown brush, clusters of blackberries and moist green ferns. I didn’t stop until I was exploding from beneath the thick canopy and skidding to a stop in a field full of wildflowers.
‘Sweet Child,’ a voice said inside my head, like wolfspeak but different, melodious and earthy, like the secrets of the planet were contained in each syllable. My biological father, the Horned God, the Forest Spirit. I turned and found him in wolf form, pure white and brilliant when the clouds parted and silver moonlight lit his pelt with brilliant light. Slowly, he made his way over to me and sat down, like he’d been waiting for quite some time.
‘I haven’t had anymore dreams,’ I told him, listening to my mates as they continued to call out to me from different parts of the forest, their muzzles raised to a dark sky, the beautiful melancholy of their voices making my pelt ripple as I slid down into the flowers to wait. ‘You disappeared after you got the cauldron.’
‘The Crone is not holding back,’ the Forest Spirit told me, walking over to stand next to me, flowers blooming and dying as he moved, springing to life in brilliant color before turning to ash beneath paws almost twice the size of my own. ‘She knows I’m here, that we have the cauldron, that she’s so close to achieving what she’s always wanted.’
‘Which is?’ I asked, but I already knew the answer to that.
Power.
Magic.
Control.
Three things that everyone wanted, that they’d fight for, kill for. If the Crone managed to kill me, kill the Forest Spirit, and take the cauldron back, my people would find their end in this century the way so many other creatures had at the hands of humans. A mass extinction that would forever alter the direction this world would take.
‘She’s calling in all her favors, using every bit of magic she’s saved for centuries. You need to take the cauldron back to Faerie.’
Pack Ivory Emerald Page 7